Long after the sun had set on this year's Boston Marathon,
the official clock turned off, and the crowds had all but gone home, 39 year
old Venezuelan, Maickel Melamed crossed the finish line around 4 A.M. It was 20 hours after the race began. What
made Maickel's race significant is that he suffers from muscular dystrophy,
which meant he didn't so much run the race as walk it. In reflecting on his
accomplishment, Maickel stated: "In
any marathon, you have to know why you're doing it. Because in the last mile, the marathon will
ask you." Maickel's motivation
was to honor Boston Children's Hospital where he was treated as a child.
The New Testament compares the Christian life to a race,
much like a marathon. It's a race which
requires perseverance and endurance. In
those times of struggle in life's race, we need to know why we are running and
for whom we are running. For believers,
Christ is the one we look to; the one we run to, the one we run for. Christ's impending return at the end of the
race motivates us to keep going.
Yes in life we often find ourselves waiting for
something. For example, military spouses
and their children wait for their husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, to
return from deployment. Sometimes we
are impatient and excited and can't wait for something to happen. Sometimes we await with patient optimism and
hope. Other times we are fearful and
anxious, are pessimistic and gloomy.
How do you look to the future?
Today is the first Sunday in the season of Advent. Advent looks forward to a bright new day.
Advent is about the future, and that coming future may be much nearer than we
can imagine. Advent declares a powerful truth - the future of this world does not belong to
the devil, to sinful human beings, to evil, to any political system, to any
nation, to any dictator, or to radical terrorist groups. No.
Advent declares this truth, the future belongs solely to God.
What does the Bible say about the future? Christ is coming! Jesus is coming! A biblical word which captures the spirit of
Advent and which ought to be in our Christian vocabulary is Maranatha! It is an Aramaic word. It means “Come Lord” or “Our Lord, Comes”. It is both a prayer and an affirmation of
faith which Christians down through the ages have held on to. “Maranatha, come Lord, our Lord comes.” I'm sure you appreciate being able to leave
church today knowing how to speak some Aramaic.
Jesus said: Watch the coming future with confidence, with
hope, with assurance, wait with patience!
Jesus said watch out for false prophets, but he also said watch for the
coming of the Son of Man. Jesus also
said watch out for wars, famines, pestilences, and natural disasters, but he
also said wait for a beautiful new day.
Sometimes I gaze out at our world and fear grips me. How about you? I wonder how will it all
end? We look with fear, with anxiety,
sometimes even with despair about tomorrow.
But as people of faith, we need to remember who holds the future, whom
the future belongs to, and whose plans and purpose will ultimately prevail.
I believe in the truth of the advent of Jesus. Why?
Because Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the Lord and Savior of the
world, the Word incarnate proclaimed it!
Jesus says: “You will see the Son
of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” “But
about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son,
but only the Father. It is like a man
going on a journey when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with
his work and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Keep awake, for you do not know when the
master of the hour will come, in the evening, or at midnight or at cockcrow or
at dawn.”
I believe because this truth is attested to in the Bible
which is the unique, authoritative and inspired Word of God! We read in the N.T. In II Timothy: “The
sacred writings are to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ
Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient equipped
for every good work.” Many chapters
and books of the Bible are devoted to this promise of Christ's final coming and
bringing the world to an end.
Third, I believe because the Biblical and Christian
understanding of history promises it!
The ancient Greeks believed that the world was eternal, it always
existed, there was no beginning or end.
Conversely, our Judeo/Christian tradition declares that only God is
eternal. That before God created the
universe, there was only emptiness.
There was no cosmos, no matter, no organisms, no gases, no chemicals, no
protozoans, no cells, no atoms, no energy, no life.
Our Judeo/Christian tradition and the scriptures declare
that God created the world out of nothing.
The world is moving toward an end time, to the destination which the
sovereign God has appointed, when God’s final purpose for His world will be
realized. Life is not meaningless, but
meaningful, life is not without any purpose, but has a purpose, life is not
aimless, but has a destination. There
is one divine, far-off event toward which the whole creation is moving; the
final triumph of God over sin and evil.
Fourth, I believe because the bible promises that the day is
coming when justice shall reign. The
injustice we witness today is an outrage.
We see horrific acts of injustice by governments, by dictators, by radical
Islamic terrorists, by murderers, where innocent people suffer and die, where
people are oppressed and persecuted.
We long for justice in our hearts, but that longing eludes
us. Author N. T. Wright in his book
"Putting the World to Rights" tells this story: I had a
dream the other night, a powerful and interesting dream. And the really
frustrating thing is that I can't remember all that it was about. I had a flash
of it as I woke up, enough to make me think how extraordinary and meaningful it
was; and then it was gone… Our passion for justice often seems like that. We
dream the dream of justice. We glimpse, for a moment, a world at one, a world
put to rights, a world where things work out, where societies function fairly
and efficiently…and then we wake up and come back to reality.
The Bible says - Do not despair! God is holy.
God is sovereign. God is righteous. There will be an accounting, a day
of reckoning, a day of justice. You reap
what you sow. In the O.T. The prophet
Amos cries out: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing
stream.” The prophet Micah
preaches: “God has told you O man what is good; and what does the Lord require of
you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”
Jesus’ judgment will be a universal, over all the living and
the dead. God will judge humanity’s
behavior, good and bad, moral and immoral, righteous and unrighteous. God will judge how much light humanity has
about God and morality and what we have done with that faith and
knowledge. And unlike our imperfect judicial
system, which is flawed, God’s judgment is perfect.
In the N.T. The books of Acts says: "God
has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a
man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising
him from the dead." Jesus will
be the judge.
Finally, I believe in Christ’s coming because God loves His
creation. God is a loving God, a forgiving God, a merciful God, slow to
anger. God loves the world and the
people he created. God will judge the
world and purge the world, but God will not destroy it, God will not annihilate
it. I believe contemporary preachers of
only doom and gloom are wrong. God will
renew the world. God will set the world right. God will restore the world. God
will re-create a new and glorious world.
At Christ's return, the world as we know it will come to an end, and in
its place, a new and transformed universe will be established forever.
Advent means you must keep watch and remember why you are
running. A few weeks ago we had our 2
&1/2 year old grandson Wyatt at our house for a few days. He sleeps in his own room. One early morning, about 5:30, I felt
something brush against my cheek. I was
still half asleep. I started to dose off
and I felt something brush against my nose.
I started to wake up and opened my eyes.
Wyatt had his face about an inch from mine, was gently touching my face
with his finger and said -” Wake up
grandpa.”
Yes, wake up to the Advent of Jesus. Jesus is coming. But about that day or that hour no one
knows, only God. May we wait with hope,
with confidence, with courage, with strength, with faith, because Jesus' return
may be much sooner than we expect. It
may be tomorrow. And when Jesus returns,
a new indescribable, unimaginable, and spectacular world will be established
forever.
I close with our Lord's inspiring vision from the Book of
Revelation: “See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to
everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the
Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. The home of God is among mortals, God will
dwell with them as their God, they will be his peoples and God himself will be
with them.” Amen!
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